One of the significant problems facing the customer service industry is maintaining up-to-date contact information for consumers. In the context of debt collection, it is virtually impossible for collection agencies to contact debtors to discuss repayment without current contact information. For transient debtors, it can be especially difficult for creditors to maintain current contact information. However, when those debtors surface to conduct transactions with other potential creditors, those transactions provide an opportunity to obtain current contact information for the debtor. Existing creditors may not be aware of such transactions, and of this opportunity to obtain up-to-date contact information for the debtor. Without current contact information, the creditor's collection efforts become much less efficient and more expensive to conduct and will most likely fail.
Another example is the survey or polling industry. Often, a polling firm may wish to survey a chosen demographic group having certain characteristics, such as age, sex, income, occupation or the like, that fall within prescribed ranges. For example, a polling firm may wish to take a marketing survey of women between the ages of 35 and 45, who work in the information technology industry and who earn an income ranging from $50,000 to $100,000. However, it can be difficult and expensive to locate a statistically-significant sample of survey respondents having characteristics that fall within those prescribed ranges. Yet, if the polling firm does not assume that expense to locate the appropriate sample of respondents, then the resulting survey is worthless. Conversely, if the polling firm assumes this expense to obtain valid survey results, then the cost of performing the survey increases accordingly, making the survey less attractive to clients of the polling firm.
Yet another example is a merchant who is having difficulty contacting a consumer to discuss a customer service matter, such as a product recall notification, an arrangement to return a product, a new product announcement, or other similar matters. For example, the consumer and the merchant may have previously conducted business, but since then the consumer may have moved several times, causing the merchant to lose contact with the consumer.
In light of these circumstances, there exists a need in the art for a method of facilitating contact between a consumer and a requesting entity, such as a collection agency, a polling firm, a merchant, or others by providing current contact information for a consumer, preferably in real time as soon as the contact information is available.
The invention provides a method of facilitating contact between a consumer and a requesting entity. The method can comprise at least the following steps. During an interaction with the consumer, the method obtains contact and index information from the consumer. Using the index information, the method accesses a data store, with the data store containing at least one selection criterion of interest to the requesting entity. The method then evaluates whether the consumer meets the selection criterion based on the result of the access to the data store. If the consumer meets the selection criterion, the method refers the contact information for the consumer to the requesting entity.